The overarching goal of this project has been, and continues to be, to develop treatment paradigms for individuals with stroke-induced morphosyntactic language deficits, i.e., agrammatic aphasia. This work makes use of mutually supportive representational (linguistic) and processing accounts of language, as well as psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic research findings, as the basis for understanding language breakdown, selecting training targets, and predicting recovery patterns. Patterns of language (re)learning and generalization provide blueprints for clinical protocols and, in turn, address the utility of this translational approach for studying language disorders. Training involves the use of metalinguistic tasks, which exploit linguistic properties and constructs involved in building grammatical sentences. This approach, termed Treatment of Underlying Forms (TUF), has proved to be successful in our past work, showing that linguistically related structures recover in parallel and that maximal recovery results from training more complex rather than simple structures. Four sets of experiments are proposed for the next grant cycle: Set 1 extends our sentence work from Wh- to NP-movement structures. In Set 2, we continue to examine the relation between and among grammatical morphemes, motivating complexity hierarchies by morphological, rather than syntactic, theories and data. We also experimentally examine the relation between syntax and morphology in Set 3 experiments by training syntactic structures and testing generalization to related grammatical morphemes, and vice versa. Finally, Set 4 experiments focus on verb argument structure, testing recovery of canonical sentence forms by controlling the number and type of arguments selected by the verb. The processing mechanisms that support recovery are studied as part of each set of experiments by tracking eye movements during language comprehension and production tasks and the neural correlates of recovery are examined using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Both methods used in the previous cycle revealed important processing patterns as well as, in the case of fMRI, pre- to post-training effects on activation patterns. We, therefore, propose to continue these efforts in this continuation proposal.

Public Health Relevance

The overarching goal of this project is to develop treatment paradigms for stroke-induced agrammatic aphasia, a language deficit affecting sentence production (and comprehension) ability. Linguistic theory as well as psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic research findings are used as the basis for understanding language deficit patterns, selecting treatment targets, and predicting recovery patterns. The processing mechanisms that support recovery also are studied by tracking eye movements during language comprehension and production tasks and the neural correlates of recovery are examined using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01DC001948-17
Application #
7774347
Study Section
Language and Communication Study Section (LCOM)
Program Officer
Cooper, Judith
Project Start
1992-09-01
Project End
2013-02-28
Budget Start
2010-03-01
Budget End
2011-02-28
Support Year
17
Fiscal Year
2010
Total Cost
$448,201
Indirect Cost
Name
Northwestern University at Chicago
Department
Other Health Professions
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
160079455
City
Evanston
State
IL
Country
United States
Zip Code
60201
Mack, Jennifer E; Thompson, Cynthia K (2017) Recovery of Online Sentence Processing in Aphasia: Eye Movement Changes Resulting From Treatment of Underlying Forms. J Speech Lang Hear Res 60:1299-1315
Mack, Jennifer E; Nerantzini, Michaela; Thompson, Cynthia K (2017) Recovery of Sentence Production Processes Following Language Treatment in Aphasia: Evidence from Eyetracking. Front Hum Neurosci 11:101
Schuchard, Julia; Thompson, Cynthia K (2017) Sequential learning in individuals with agrammatic aphasia: evidence from artificial grammar learning. J Cogn Psychol (Hove) 29:521-534
Schuchard, Julia; Nerantzini, Michaela; Thompson, Cynthia K (2017) Implicit learning and implicit treatment outcomes in individuals with aphasia. Aphasiology 31:25-48
Mack, Jennifer E; Wei, Andrew Zu-Sern; Gutierrez, Stephanie et al. (2016) Tracking sentence comprehension: Test-retest reliability in people with aphasia and unimpaired adults. J Neurolinguistics 40:98-111
Cho-Reyes, Soojin; Mack, Jennifer E; Thompson, Cynthia K (2016) Grammatical Encoding and Learning in Agrammatic Aphasia: Evidence from Structural Priming. J Mem Lang 91:202-218
Wang, Honglei; Thompson, Cynthia K (2016) Assessing Syntactic Deficits in Chinese Broca's aphasia using the Northwestern Assessment of Verbs and Sentences-Chinese (NAVS-C). Aphasiology 30:815-840
Lee, Jiyeon; Thompson, Cynthia K (2015) Phonological facilitation effects on naming latencies and viewing times during noun and verb naming in agrammatic and anomic aphasia. Aphasiology 29:1164-1188
Meltzer-Asscher, Aya; Mack, Jennifer E; Barbieri, Elena et al. (2015) How the brain processes different dimensions of argument structure complexity: evidence from fMRI. Brain Lang 142:65-75
Lee, Jiyeon; Yoshida, Masaya; Thompson, Cynthia K (2015) Grammatical Planning Units During Real-Time Sentence Production in Speakers With Agrammatic Aphasia and Healthy Speakers. J Speech Lang Hear Res 58:1182-94

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